SUMMARYThe use of boundary-conforming ÿnite element methods is considered for the solution of surfacetension-dominated free-surface ow problems in three dimensions. This class of method is based upon the use of a moving mesh whose velocity is driven by the motion of the free surface, which is in turn determined via a kinematic boundary condition for the normal velocity. The signiÿcance of the method used to compute the normal direction at the ÿnite element node points for a C 0 piecewise-polynomial free surface is investigated. In particular, it is demonstrated that the concept of mass-consistent normals on an isoparametric quadratic tetrahedral mesh is awed. In this case an alternative, purely geometric, normal is shown to lead to a far more robust numerical algorithm.